Prior to the anticipated tune-up of the Yamaha YZF-R1 at the end of this week, the motorcycle starts well without showing any of its recent problems. Tuesday and Wednesday are good days at work as I contribute individually and at meetings. After a couple of the meetings I've made new friends beacsue they realize I share all information and will speak the truth and not ignore problem areas. After work I get out walking on Tuesday and have a heavier session with the weights on Wednesday with no shoulder pain. Person Ti_Ca work on his final essay/project for the semester each night. And I look forward to the weekend where nighttime temperatures are expected in the 30s F in Long Beach.
The Actifed does the trick as I sleep very well on Friday night. I'm out of bed later than usual since Derrick and I have decided to delay our ride by about 30 minutes due to the cold weather. Nonetheless I am out the door near 7 am with the thermometer below 40 degrees F to ride. I meet up with Derrick and we go over the Whittier Narrows dam and down the San Gabriel river trail. The farther I ride today the better I feel and the worse that Derrick feels. At one point I'm pulling and Derrick is calling out 23 miles per hour and is barely hanging on. During the few miles of street riding I see a bus go past us and I sprint to try and stay with the bus and use the bus as a windbreak. Eventually I give up but Derrick says that we hit 32 miles per hour during the chase. At the end I add on some extra miles to pull Derrick along - I end up at 60 miles. During the ride we pass a guy who has a Ciocc bicycle - like my old road bicycle. So I slow down and it is the same year as mine but with the ugly turquoise color that I've only seen in pictures and not in real life. THe bike has modified components, but the frame looks nice. The rider, who says his father gave him the bicycle to ride, and I have a little conversation before Derrick and I head out into the distance. I get home and mow the lawn, grab a nice warm shower, and take Person Ti_Ca to run errands: the library, lunch, and grocery shopping. There is a First Friday event near my house and Person T_U calls me to go. But Istay inside the house where it is warm - I'm tired from the bicycle ride and I've received word from work that I might have to fly to Baltimore because they had a failure and I don't want to be out in the cold beforehand and get sick.
There is no alarm clock set for Sunday and yet I wake up at 5:30 am with no fever. I get up and mill around the house before starting out for a very cold bicycle ride near 7:30 am. I feel strong today and proceed to have a great, if cold, bicycle ride. When I get home the chunk of ice that I tossed in the backyard from the freezer has not even started to melt - it is that cold today. After I ride I gather toxic materials for a toxic recycling event next Saturday, have a warm shower, and do some quick grocery shopping. The rest of the day is spent relaxing,watching football, reading, working on websites, helping Person Ti_Ca with homework, and some more relaxing.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are fairly productive days at work and afterwards. I lift weights on Wednesday and Friday with Friday's lifts as heavy as I've done in many months. I get home a bit late on THursday and just go walking for 40 minutes. Person Ti_Ca is getting ready for finals and working these days so our schedules are somewhat mutually exclusive.
Saturday starts with a long bicycle ride. I get up to the Whittier Narrows dam and turn around and go all the way back to the ocean before turning around and heading for home. There are not many riders out to start but eventually more riders are seen. I struggle for most of the ride and my lower back hurts today. I wonder why? After a shower I drop off some toxic chemicals, expired medicines, and the motorcycle battery at a toxic waste recycling event and then grab Person Ti_Ca to have lunch. We go to Olive Gardens and have the same waiter/server as we did a few months ago. He remembers us, or claims to, and I just grze on salad and bread sticks while Person Ti_Ca has a delicious entree. This server is nice, so we give him a good tip as we did last time. I drop Person Ti_Ca off to get ready for work and I go to the library for two more books (including one about Jimmy Connors) and I do grocery shopping before returning home. I also polish up some more of the kitchen marble countertops and now I realize that I have been on the move since 6:30 am with barely a break or rest. So for the rest of the day I do some reading and relaxing on the sofa and hope that my lower back feels better for tomorrow's bicycle ride with Derrick.
The alarm seems to come very quickly on Monday morning. I have a good ride to work and have a fairly unproductive day. It's a transition day because we expect to start testing a sensor and I'm waiting for the phone call. But the call doesn't come until 3:30 in the afternoon. I walk over to the vibration lab and look at the data. I explain to the external customer and co-workers what the data shows and we'll have to fix an accelerometer or two and re-run the initial test on Tuesday morning. The ride home is eventfull as the Yamaha YZF-R1 hits 77,777 miles. I take a picture of the odometer and stop at the liquor store to buy lottery tickets (with the odometer at 77777) because it might be a sign of luck. When I get home there is a youngish man and his son in front of my house taking pictures of a burning orange sunset. When I pull off the helmet they man says, "Oh, I expected to see a young kid riding that motorcycle". And I just say, "No, I'm a senile old man". I get in a great workout with the weights where this heavy workout feels good enough that I should increase the weights again for the next workout. I watch Monday night football because my Detroit Lions are playing.